When it comes to the war, we’re too smart for Bush’s persuasive tactics

Recently, the Bush administration’s marketing campaign for their “War on Iraq” has begun to get serious again. Even Colin Powell, once the most wary member of the administration, has joined the club. In the president’s State of the Union address two weeks ago and in Powell’s speech to the U.N. Security Council last week, the administration has made it clear that they will stop at nothing — even rapidly falling polls — to oust Hussein from power. Bush has tried to tie Hussein to his “War Against Terror” campaign, and Powell played off of Americans’ fear and grief after Sept. 11, 2001, to advocate for the war in his speech last Wednesday.

And still, the administration has not produced a single piece of evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida. Meanwhile, top CIA and FBI officials report that intelligence is becoming politicized, and they are being pressured into looking for links between Iraq and al-Qaida that simply don’t exist.

When will the Bush administration understand that the majority of Americans are too smart to be persuaded to support this war, a war that would likely bring significant numbers of American casualties, brought upon us and the people of Iraq by a president who has offered no concrete plans for either country’s post-war future? Why doesn’t the Bush administration understand that Americans are too smart for its advertising campaign — that a technique that very well may convince us to buy Coca-Cola will not convince us to give up our lives for a war that will not make our country less secure, not more?